Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes would reap more than $79 million in added payments if there is a sale of the company, according to Bloomberg.
Other investors joining Bewkes in the windfall include: Mario Gabelli and his clients at Gamco Investors, owners of a $350 million stake.
Time Warner’s shares are up 23 percent since a $75 billion takeover bid by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc. became public on July 16.
Bewkes, Gabelli and other employees and investors may gain further if Fox eventually wins Time Warner for more than the $85-a-share Murdoch first offered. The company has been a long-term commitment for Gabelli, who owned Warner Communications stock when Steve Ross fought Murdoch 30 years ago, according to Bloomberg..
“The company has been doing more or less the right things in terms of growing values, and that’s why we own 4 million shares for clients,” said Gabelli, 72, who has followed Time Warner and its predecessors for more than 40 years. Gabelli once held almost 26 million shares.
Bewkes’s so-called parachute payment, representing the value of added equity awards and items such as life insurance, is described in the company’s annual proxy filing and based on the Dec. 31 stock price, which has since advanced 31 percent. As of Feb. 28, he owned 225,517 Time Warner shares outright, according to the filing, now worth about $19.7 million. As of late April, he had exercisable options on 3.86 million shares.